


Sapphic Signals

by g_odalisque13



Category: Super Junior-M, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: 1950s, 50s Greasers, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Greasers, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Coming Out, Coming Untouched, Coming of Age, F/F, First Kiss, Friendship, Genderswap, Greasers, Hook-Up, Lesbian Character, Making Out, Male-Female Friendship, Sexuality Crisis, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21797704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_odalisque13/pseuds/g_odalisque13
Summary: Being part of the greaser crowd in the 1950's is a pretty good indication that a person doesn't quite fit in with normal society. But Yoonji has a secret that even her leather jacket can't protect her from.
Relationships: Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga, Kim Taehyung | V/Min Yoongi | Suga, Min Yoongi | Suga/Zhou Mi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	Sapphic Signals

**Author's Note:**

> This is Yoonji's backstory from my forthcoming fem!YoonJin fic. The pairings listed are just side pairings since this is basically a Yoonji-centric story. I kind of wrote this by accident, but it got me out of my rut. You don't need to read this to read the fem!YoonJin and you don't need to read the fem!YoonJin to read this.

At twelve, Yoonji wrinkled her nose at the dense, text-heavy books her index finger brushed across as she perused the impressive book collection housed in the study of Namjoon's parents. It was mid-summer, and Yoonji and Namjoon had been tossing a ball around in Namjoon's backyard, but the hot sun had inspired a break indoors. Evidently Namjoon was already invested in a book of short stories, sprawled on the chaise in the corner, so Yoonji was left to find something that would catch her interest. 

There were heavy medical books, palm sized poetry books, and encyclopedia sets spanning several years, the most recent from the current year- 1951. Yoonji moved past several Greek plays and a book about plants before pausing at the spine of a book that advertised classic art. She didn't know much about art, but a quick peek inside showed a plethora of black and white photos of sculptures and paintings that seemed intriguing enough. So with the large book in her hands, Yoonji made her way to the sizable mahogany desk in the center of the room and settled in the leather chair that sat behind it. 

Yoonji leaned forward as she flipped through the pages, book open and taking up most of the blotter on the desk's surface. There were sculptures from ancient Rome and paintings from France. Namjoon's parents had been to Europe, but Yoonji had never even been out of the country. It was fun to imagine she was really there, though, looking at the art. Or even that she had lived in the times when it had been created. 

Turning the page, Yoonji froze as she took in the painting in front of her. It was a nude woman, standing in a seashell with her hair flowing around her body and the ocean stretched out behind her. There was a woman to her left and a pair of angels to her right, but Yoonji barely glanced at them.

Swallowing, she glanced up at Namjoon to make sure he wasn't paying attention to her. Not that she was doing anything besides looking at a book. It wasn't as though he would know what she was looking at exactly. And she wasn't announcing it either. She wasn't doing anything she wasn't supposed to. _Birth of Venus_ , as it was titled, was just another painting in the book. Yoonji hadn't _placed_ it there. 

With a breath, she let her eyes return to the book and the soft curves of the woman's body- the dip of her waist, the gentle swell of her belly, the exposed breast. Yoonji's face was hot, cheeks probably red, and she knew she should turn the page, but her fingers felt like jointless doll hands. It wasn't that she was so shocked to see illustrations of naked people. She and Namjoon had thought they were so rebellious when they had looked through a biology textbook with drawings of human anatomy when they were in elementary school. And she had just passed by Michaelangelo's nude depiction of Adam with no more than a passing thought about why people would want a naked man on a chapel ceiling. 

But here she was, blushing and guilty as she leaned in to see the way Venus had her right hand cupped around her breast. Shifting against the chair, Yoonji felt a flare of heat in her gut that had her slamming the book shut, and definitely getting Namjoon's attention then.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up a little with his finger stuck between the pages in the book he was reading to save his place.

"Bored," Yoonji lied, forcing her doll hands into working order as she got up to return the book to its rightful place and kept her head forward so her hair might hide the flush staining her cheeks. 

"Want to go into town and get ice cream?" Namjoon suggested, and Yoonji agreed, sliding the book back onto the shelf in the gap it had left. 

Her face cooled down, and the ice cream was delicious. But that painting was imprinted in her mind despite her attempts at forgetting it.

In the following months, Yoonji looked at that book again with the flimsy excuse of wanting to test her own reaction. Maybe it had been a one off.

It hadn't. But she continued to check all the same. And it wasn't long until she had the page numbers with paintings and sculptures of scantily clad and nude women memorized. 

Perhaps most heavy realizations didn't happen in studies filled with books. Or maybe they did. For Yoonji, that was the beginning of a very important one.

\---

A year later found the two of them, best friends for seven years at that point, in Namjoon's bedroom trying to find something to do. Earlier, his parents had given them money to go to the movies in order to get them out of the way for the dinner party they were throwing. When they'd caught the bus back and arrived before the party was over, they'd been shuttled through the living room full of dressed up and pink faced adults to the stairs- instructed to stay in Namjoon's room and not bother anyone. 

There might have been a lot of laughter coming from the first floor, but mingling with a bunch of adults who would comment about her height (not impressive) or how lucky she would make her future husband did not sound like fun to Yoonji. So she was quite content to avoid all of that entirely, even if it meant being banished to the second floor until further notice. 

They could have gone to Yoonji's house instead, but it was much smaller, and her father didn't have much patience for them making noise. If he hadn't fallen asleep on the couch already, he'd likely end up scolding them with alcohol sour breath for talking too loudly and making Namjoon go home anyway. Plus, her parents never gave them pocket money to go to the movie theater, so getting kicked out of Namjoon's house was a lot more fun than getting kicked out of her own. 

Laying on her back, Yoonji was flicking the wheel of one of the metal cars Namjoon had on his shelf.

"Want to play Gin Rummy?" Yoonji suggested, hoping Namjoon had brought the deck of cards back to his room after they had been playing in the living room the day before.

"Sure," Namjoon replied, but he didn't make any move to get the cards. "The movie was good."

"Mmhmm," Yoonji agreed, smiling as she recalled the ridiculous scene with the baby. "It was funny."

Namjoon's grin was quick, dimples flashing, before he sobered.

"It made me wonder, though," he said, sitting forward a bit from where he was leaning against his bed across from Yoonji, "what kissing is like."

Yoonji blinked, sitting up fully and trying to think if there had even been kissing in the film. After a beat, she remembered that Dr. Fulton had kissed his wife at one point, but it was hardly the focus of the movie.

"Oh," Yoonji responded, unsure of what to say to that. She had been a bit more focused on the adults regressing to children's behavior than the short kiss. 

"Do you want to...try?" Namjoon asked when Yoonji didn't say anything more, and Yoonji was sure she felt her eyes widen at the unexpected request.

Was he serious? His somewhat bashful expression seemed to be a clue that he was. 

"I don't have romantic feelings for you, though," Yoonji countered, wanting to be honest. She had never, in the seven years they had known one another, felt anything for Namjoon other than friendship. 

"Me neither!" he was quick to assure her, scooting several inches closer to her on the wood floor and nudging the blue rug next to his bed so it jammed against his dresser. "Just to see what it's like."

Yoonji paused, watching Namjoon's open gaze watch her. She didn't really have any desire to kiss Namjoon, but as far as boys went, he would be a more agreeable option than most. If she was to kiss any boy. 

It could be interesting, she thought. And something deep down wondered if kissing Namjoon would awaken something in her that would make her feel something for boys. Because as of yet, she really couldn't see the appeal. Women, with their soft skin and painted lips, had Yoonji staring after them in what she assured herself was innocent admiration. Perhaps it took kissing a boy to understand why the girls who sat behind them in the theater kept gushing about how handsome Cary Grant was.

"Okay," she finally said with a shrug, and the relief that crossed Namjoon's face had her feeling kind of guilty. "Just to see what it's like."

Nodding emphatically, Namjoon moved the last several inches between them so his knee was touching hers. 

Yoonji looked at Namjoon as he leaned in, hesitating a bit as he seemed to decide how he should tilt his head to best get to her lips without bumping their noses together before he closed the gap and his mouth pressed against hers.

Yoonji had seen a movie where fireworks had erupted behind the couple embracing as the orchestral music swelled. Kissing Namjoon was nothing like that. It wasn't horribly unpleasant or anything, but it was no more than the straightforward sensation of lips pressed against hers- no more, no less. 

Pulling away, Namjoon was looking at her- waiting for some sort of reaction. 

After a second during which neither of them said anything, Namjoon huffed out a sheepish laugh.

"Yeah, we're probably too much like siblings for that to really work," he observed, and Yoonji nodded, agreeing. 

Was that what it was?

As Namjoon got up to retrieve the deck of cards from his bedside table, Yoonji comforted herself with the idea that the only reason she hadn't felt anything was that Namjoon was practically her brother. 

Maybe if it was a different boy, she would feel something- _anything_.

Maybe.

\---

"I dare you to kiss Namjoon," Hoseok said, eyes glinting in the low light of Namjoon's living room. Only the lamp in the corner was on, but none of them had bothered to turn on another even as the evening sun had disappeared entirely. 

As was often the case, Namjoon's parents weren't home, so they were able to play the risky game of truth or dare in a communal space without fear of anyone walking in to ask what they were doing. 

"I've already kissed him," Yoonji said blandly, and heard Namjoon snort as Hoseok gaped.

Yoonji knew that Hoseok was just hoping for a retaliatory dare in which he was challenged to kiss Taeha. It was very obvious he liked her. Though who could blame him? She was stunning with her striking features and infectious grin. The fact that she wore tight skirts and blouses, and put on bright red lipstick the second the school bell rang at the end of the day only served to have her standing out from their classmates even more.

"It was just to see what the fuss was about," Namjoon explained since Hoseok looked like he was waiting to hear more, though Taeha was just laughing. 

Yoonji and Namjoon had started to hang out with Hoseok and Taeha at the start of high school. After having seen The Wild One in the movie theater, the two of them had taken inspiration and begun dressing like the greasers in the movie. If they were going to be outcasts, rebels sounded better than the shy losers with no friends as they had been until then. 

Taeha and Hoseok also shied away from conformity (though given that Hoseok's older brothers were both greasers, maybe it was the opposite in his case), so they had naturally gravitated to each other. The four of them didn't get up to anything seriously unlawful like some of the older kids, but sneaking out to the school parking lot between classes to smoke sure had its appeal. And the leather jacket made Yoonji feel kind of invincible.

"So how was it?" Hoseok prompted regarding the kiss, nudging Namjoon in the side.

"Like incest," Yoonji replied, having Taeha practically laying on the floor with laughter.

Yoonji's lips twitched up at the corners.

"Okay fine," Hoseok relented, "I guess I just have to dare you to kiss Taeha then."

Yoonji stared at Hoseok in shock as her heart started up an unrelenting pace in her chest, Namjoon's chuckle and Hoseok's proud smile blurring with irrelevance as Yoonji's brain latched on hard to what Hoseok had just suggested.

Taeha's giggle to her left had Yoonji looking over at her- smile amused and the warm light from the lamp raking over her features so half her face was nearly in shadow. 

"Okay," Taeha agreed, lips a deep red that Yoonji couldn't drag her gaze away from.

"It's Yoonji's dare," Namjoon chuckled, somewhere off to Yoonji's right, though he could have been in another room for all Yoonji was paying attention to him at that moment. 

"It's fine," she heard herself saying, shoulder jerking up in a shrug that was supposed to be nonchalant. 

Taeha's eyes were on her, smile warm and face hallowed by the light behind her. Smooth fingers touched Yoonji's jaw and she tilted her head on instinct as Taeha dipped forward to press their lips together. 

Heat from her mouth and the waxiness from her lipstick were what Yoonji registered as she scrambled to catalogue what it felt like. There were no literal fireworks (of course), but Yoonji couldn't help to equate the tingles racing up her arms to little, sparkling explosions.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and Yoonji was motionless as she blinked to try to bring the room back into focus.

Hoseok was saying something, but Taeha's giggle in her direction was all she heard.

"You have my lipstick on you," she was saying, easily reaching out to gently hold Yoonji's chin with one hand while she brushed the fingers of the other hand against her mouth. Yoonji had to steel herself against the pleasant shiver she wanted to give into, nails digging into her own palm.

Taeha grinned, pulling away to show Yoonji the red smudge against her fingertips, and Yoonji knew her cheeks must have matched the shade. 

It was her turn to dare someone to do something, but her mind was stuck in a loop- replaying the kiss over and over. Fortunately, Namjoon chose truth, and she absently set him up to admit to wetting his pants in elementary school on a field trip.

Before he was even done telling the story she had been there for, Yoonji excused herself to the bathroom- leaning against the closed door with her hand over her racing heart and the fingers of the other hand reaching up to touch her lips.

Peering in the mirror, Yoonji could see remnants of Taeha's lipstick on her mouth. She really didn't know how to deal with any of this, so she took a breath and fortified herself- returning back to the group with her leather jacket wrapped around herself like armor.

Namjoon ended up taking pity on Hoseok with his non-subtle hints and daring him to kiss Taeha. Yoonji didn't want to watch, but did anyway.

They started going steady the next day, and Yoonji ignored the pang of jealousy in her gut.

\---

"You will never guess what I stole from the garage," Hoseok boasted as he stepped into Namjoon's kitchen, referring to the mechanic shop his family owned. 

"Hopefully not a car," Namjoon snorted, coming in behind him to sit back down at the table by Yoonji. 

Hoseok laughed, still not telling them anything, and made his way over to where Taeha was sitting to give her an enthusiastic and shameless kiss.

They were like that. Yoonji had mostly gotten used to it. It had been nearly six months after all.

"What did you steal?" Namjoon prompted when they were still kissing a moment later.

Disentangling his mouth from Taeha's, Hoseok popped up and pulled something from beneath his jacket.

"Ta da!" he proclaimed, holding up a magazine for them all to see.

" _Playboy_?" Namjoon read, brows jumping. "You know, most guys wouldn't bring pornographic magazines to show their girlfriend."

"I want to see!" Taeha defended, and Hoseok grinned, smug.

So that was how they ended up all crowding around Hoseok at the kitchen table as he laid out the magazine and slowly turned the pages.

The beginning had text and photos of women that wouldn't have been out of place in a fashion or gossip magazine. It wasn't what Yoonji had imagined when she thought of dirty magazines. But then Hoseok turned the page, and Yoonji felt that swooping sensation low in her abdomen that she had first felt looking at the art books in Namjoon's parents' study. Lately, she'd become desensitized to the same paintings she had seen time and time again, but the heat that filled her gut now was undiluted.

On the page was a woman reclining on a duvet with silk draped around her upper arm, snaking over her hip and curving around a thigh. Her eyes pierced the camera, unashamed of her naked breasts, nipples pink and peaked, as she seemed to look into Yoonji's soul.

Swallowing, Yoonji hastily glanced away from the photo to see if any of her friends had noticed her current state, but naturally, they were all fixated on the same woman Yoonji was looking at.

"I wonder if they have to keep the room really warm for her so she doesn't freeze," Taeha mused, and Yoonji tried to remember how she'd been standing before she became hyper aware of every move she made. 

"It would be kind of funny if everyone else was sweating in the meanwhile," Namjoon joked, and Taeha laughed, though all of it sounded like it was happening on the other side of a pane of glass.

Had her mouth been so dry before? Was she breathing really loudly? Surely everyone could hear her heartbeat.

"I don't think she's warm…" Hoseok said, head tilting, and Namjoon thwacked him on the back of the skull. "What? I'm just saying!"

It was Taeha who flipped to the next page that time, revealing the same woman sitting with her feet tucked beneath her and her slightly parted knees facing to the side- a tease to what the camera couldn't see. She was looking at the camera with a little quirk of her lips, amused by the fact that the viewer was almost definitely looking at her pert breasts and rosy nipples.

Yoonji tried swallowing, throat clicking impossibly loudly. It felt like the walls were closing in, her friends' laughter sounding far away and too close at the same time. 

The page was being turned again, but Yoonji couldn't stand being taunted by another woman who seemed to know her secret. 

"Bathroom," she uttered, stepping back from the table and quickly making her way out of the kitchen. 

Speed walking past the powder room in the front hall, Yoonji went straight for the stairs- taking them two at a time and going to the bathroom connected to Namjoon's room. 

With the door closed behind her and the lock turned, Yoonji collapsed in front of the sink, letting sobs shake her shoulders. Why was this happening to her? Why did she have to feel like this? Why couldn't she be normal and fantasize about James Dean like the other girls? 

Even being a floor up, Yoonji was careful to muffle her cries with a palm, feeling hot tears squeeze out from her tightly closed eyes and drip down her cheeks to the seam where her hand was pressed. 

"Yoonji?"

She startled at the knock on the door and Namjoon's voice. 

"Are you okay? You've been gone a while."

Hastily wiping at her tear stained face as though Namjoon would be able to see through the door, Yoonji tried to clear her throat silently.

"I'm fine," she said, but knew he'd be able to hear the shake in her voice. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, sounding worried, and Yoonji grabbed for a tissue to clean her nose which she was sure was red.

"Nothing," she lied, standing up to look at herself in the mirror. Unsurprisingly, her face was blotchy and her eyes were rimmed with red. There was absolutely no hiding that she had been crying. 

"I can pick this lock, you know," Namjoon reminded her, calling back to the time they'd been fighting over a toy in elementary school, and Yoonji had gone into the bathroom and locked the door with the coveted toy only to have Namjoon triumphantly burst in moments later to take it back.

"I'm fine," Yoonji repeated, though she knew he wasn't kidding, so with one last sniffle, she opened the door and stepped out.

Namjoon took one look at her, and his face went from concerned to seriously worried.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not," Yoonji lied even as a rogue tear slipped down her cheek.

" _Yoonji_ ," Namjoon said, tone letting her know he wasn't going to humor that fib while still overflowing with care.

And then that awful thing where someone being nice makes a person cry harder happened, and Yoonji felt her resolve crumple as a sob escaped. Her hands were over her own face as she cried, like she could disappear, but Namjoon's arms wrapped around her and held her so she couldn't float off into a void of her own making.

Warm hands rubbing at her back and shoulders as Namjoon made soothing little remarks was comforting despite Yoonji's attempts at acting like she didn't need it. When she finally caught her breath enough to stop hiccuping around her sobs, Namjoon pulled back a little so she could get herself together.

"What's going on?" he asked softly, and Yoonji sniffled, having to look at the floor beneath their feet instead of his face. 

Blowing out a breath, Yoonji felt like the truth was going to suffocate her- phantom fingers gripping her throat. Telling anyone that there was something wrong with her wasn't something she had intended to do, but this was Namjoon. She trusted him with her life. Maybe talking about it would take some of the weight off her shoulders. Because as it was, she was starting to feel like she was being crushed.

"I'm broken," she said quietly, lips trembling as she fought back another rush of tears. 

"What do you mean you're broken?"

"The way I feel about girls is the way boys are meant to feel about them," Yoonji admitted quietly, jamming one fisted hand in her jacket pocket while the other scrubbed at the tears still sneaking down her cheeks.

When Namjoon didn't immediately reply, she rushed to explain further, in case he wasn't comprehending what she was saying.

"And I don't like boys," she went on, something defiant settling in her gut even as her voice shook. "I don't want to date them or kiss them or anything."

Maybe Namjoon would think she was exaggerating her feelings. It sounded ridiculous, probably, but it was the truth. And as much as Yoonji was terrified of what Namjoon was going to say to her, there was a sense of relief at having said it out loud. 

"How long have you felt like this?" Namjoon asked, voice gentle.

"Years…" Yoonji offered, eyes still on the ground and a shoulder jerking up in a shrug.

"I wish you would have told me," Namjoon said, feet shuffling closer so he could put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not broken, Yoonji."

That had Yoonji's eyes raising up to see Namjoon's face- to see the earnestness shining in his eyes.

"Homosexuality has been accepted in plenty of cultures throughout history," he told her, both hands squeezing her shoulders now. "Unfortunately, this isn't one of them, but it's getting a little better."

A homosexual. That's what she was. 

It sounded so clinical.

"But have you ever heard of Sappho?" Namjoon went on, looking excited. 

Of course he had some random facts to throw at her in the midst of a mental breakdown. It almost had Yoonji wanting to laugh, but instead she just shook her head.

"She was a famous poet in ancient Greece," Namjoon explained. "She lived on the island of Lesbos, and was a lesbian. That's where the word comes from."

Lesbian.

It was a little better than homosexual. Yoonji silently tested it on her tongue. It felt foreign.

"No one cared what her sexuality was," Namjoon was saying. "She was celebrated as one of the greatest poets of all time. My parents have a book of her poetry. I'll show it to you sometime."

"Okay," Yoonji agreed weakly, still feeling off kilter, but her chest didn't feel as tight.

"There's nothing wrong with you, okay?" Namjoon insisted, looking Yoonji in the eye until she nodded.

She wasn't completely sure she believed that, but everything didn't feel as awful as before when she had been a crying heap on the cold tile floor of the bathroom.

Namjoon held his arms out, smiling at Yoonji gently and waiting for a hug. They weren't really the hugging type of friends, but considering she had sobbed all over his shirt a few minutes before, she figured it was as good a time as any.

Yoonji stared out the window behind Namjoon's shoulder that looked out on his backyard. She could see the swing set way out in the back where they used to play, when things were simpler.

With Namjoon's grounding presence and comforting embrace, Yoonji felt a little okay for the first time in a while. Maybe everything would be alright.

"Shall we go see what Taeha and Hoseok are up to?" Namjoon suggested when he let her go.

"Is it safe?" Yoonji joked, having walked in on more heavy kissing sessions than she would have liked. 

"We'll walk really loudly so they have warning," he said as Yoonji ducked into the bathroom to blow her nose.

Looking in the mirror, Yoonji tried out the word again in her head- lesbian. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stared until her vision blurred. Her reflection was still familiar even if the fragments didn't quite feel like they fit together yet.

At the very least, she wouldn't splinter apart into a million pieces, and for now, that was enough.

\---

"This is it," Namjoon announced, pulling his car into the gravel parking lot next to a small brick building with a sign of a coffee cup protruding from side. 

Yoonji felt her heart rate kick up.

It had been almost a year since she had told Namjoon her secret, and she thought she was finally maybe getting used to having it. With Namjoon's insistence that it wasn't anything to fight or be ashamed of, Yoonji was doing her best to accept it. 

But with all of Namjoon's promises that she could lead a fulfilling and normal life, Yoonji kept pointing out that there was no way for her to meet someone. It wasn't as though some girl was just going to ask her to go to the homecoming dance. 

Yoonji had mostly just been complaining for the sake of it, but of course Namjoon had taken it upon himself to find a potential solution. 

He reasoned that she would have better luck with liberal college girls than high school girls who were just thinking about making curfew and turning in their homework on time. And he knew about a coffee shop on the campus of the college that was one town over. Additionally, it was apparently frequented by beatniks who, according to Namjoon, were well read, open minded, and uninterested in conforming to society.

It all seemed like a long shot, but Namjoon kept pestering her about his grand plan, so eventually Yoonji had given in.

Now, as she unbuckled her seatbelt in the last bit of sunlight before it dipped below the horizon, she was kind of wishing she hadn't. Even if there were women there who were like her, how was she going to know? And then what was she supposed to do? Ask them on a date? This was all seeming like an exercise in futility. Not to mention the way her heart was pounding like she was walking into a warzone. 

"I'm not going to sit with you in there," Namjoon told her, turning to her in the dim light.

"What? Why?"

Sitting alone. Oh good. That sounded so pleasant and not conspicuous at all.

"People might think we're _together_ together," he explained. "If you're by yourself, hopefully a girl will come up to you."

"How's she even going to know I'm...like that?" Yoonji demanded, feeling worse about the idea by the second.

"Maybe you send out sapphic signals," he suggested with a shrug. "I wouldn't know because they're not for me."

"Sapphic signals," Yoonji muttered, snorting at the absurdity of it all. This was such a waste of time. 

"We'll just stay for a bit, and if nothing comes of it, we'll go, okay?" Namjoon said, looking Yoonji in the eye as he reached for his door handle.

"Okay," Yoonji sighed, nerves creeping through her extremities as she climbed from the car and followed Namjoon across the lot. 

The coffee shop was warm with incandescent lamps scattered throughout, giving it the feeling of a large living room. Near the back wall, there was a microphone set up on a small platform, and several people milling about nearby while the other patrons sat in small clusters on the couches and at mismatched tables. Yoonji saw a lot of people in black clothing, as she expected of people part of the beatnik culture, though there were just as many in sweaters, jeans, and wool skirts. 

"Shall we order?" Namjoon suggested, and Yoonji nodded, though she couldn't help looking around the room still, wondering if any of the girls there were like her.

"How about we sit together, but I act like I'm repulsed every time you look at me," Yoonji proposed once they both had their mugs of hot coffee, black. 

Namjoon laughed, blowing on the surface of the dark liquid.

"As enjoyable for me as that sounds," he teased, "I think you'll have better luck if you sit by yourself. If I'm there, I don't know if a girl will be as inclined to approach you."

He was probably right, but Yoonji sighed anyway, waving half heartedly as Namjoon walked away to find himself a seat in a less populated corner and left Yoonji to fend for herself.

There was a small, empty table near the wall, so Yoonji made her way over and sat down. From there, she had a clear view of the platform and microphone where a man was stepping forward like he was going to say something. 

"Welcome to the weekly poetry reading put on by the literary club," he said into the microphone, eliciting a barrage of snaps from the audience as they quieted down and directed their attention to the front.

Yoonji looked across the room at Namjoon and raised her eyebrows. He shrugged. Evidently, the poetry reading hadn't been part of his plan. 

As Yoonji sipped her coffee and looked around, a guy got up to read his poem out loud. It was something about the government, but Yoonji wasn't paying close enough attention to know if she agreed with the sentiments or not.

She'd give it until she was done with her coffee, she decided. It wasn't that hearing the poetry wasn't interesting. She just felt like a freak sitting by herself. When her coffee was gone, she was going to go over to Namjoon and either sit with him or get him to leave with her.

As the fourth reader was stepping down from the platform, Yoonji's view was obscured by a figure in front of her. Looking up, up, up, Yoonji made eye contact with a very tall woman standing in front of her little table. 

The woman was clad in black pants and a black turtleneck with a pair of cateye glasses resting on the bridge of her long, straight nose. Her face was angular with sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin, but the smile that spread across her features was pure warmth. 

"May I?" she asked when Yoonji did nothing but stare dumbly up at her.

"Sure," Yoonji quickly replied, scooting her mug toward herself, and trying to keep her expectations for this interaction in check. She probably wasn't sending sapphic signals, and this woman probably just wanted a seat in the crowded cafe. 

"I'm Zhou Mi," the woman said, long, auburn hair shining in the low light.

"Yoonji," Yoonji responded, quickly letting go of the death grip she had on her mug to shake the woman's proffered hand- slender with long fingers and red polish on rounded nails. 

It was then that Yoonji noticed the little leather notebook sitting in front of Zhou Mi on the table, the edges of the pages looking a little wavy and yellowed.

"Oh, were you going to read?" Yoonji asked, pointing at the notebook.

"I was considering it," Zhou Mi told her with a little smile. "Maybe I'll read next time instead. I hadn't seen you here before, so I decided I'd rather come over."

Yoonji blinked, feeling a flush beginning on the back of her neck even though that wasn't necessarily indicative of anything. 

"You don't go to school here, do you?" Zhou Mi asked, leaning in and speaking quietly so as not to disturb other patrons who were listening to a blonde girl read her poem.

"No, I...am thinking of coming here next year," Yoonji blurted out, unsure of why she'd lied. At sixteen, she wasn't attending college next year. She didn't even know if she would go to college at all, let alone where. But she felt like such a dumb kid in that moment, the lie just came out.

"Oh! What are you thinking of studying?" Zhou Mi prompted, and Yoonji immediately regretted lying because now she had to keep doing it.

"Piano maybe?" she tried, grasping at anything. "Something with music?"

She probably sounded like the biggest moron of all time, but Zhou Mi was nodding anyway.

"You play?" she inquired, chin resting in her palm as she leaned in, and Yoonji could smell the perfume she was wearing- woody and floral.

"Yeah, since I was a kid," Yoonji confirmed, wiping her sweaty hands on her jeans. At least that part wasn't a lie.

"I wish I could play an instrument," Zhou Mi confessed with a little smile and a tilt of her head that had Yoonji's stomach fluttering.

"You're a...literature major?" Yoonji got out, feeling Zhou Mi's foot knock against hers under the table.

Zhou Mi nodded, fiddling with the ring on her index finger even as she kept eye contact with Yoonji. "With a creative writing minor."

"That's...interesting," Yoonji said. And it was! She was just a little overstimulated with the way Zhou Mi seemed to be moving in even closer, so her knee brushed against Yoonji's.

Namjoon had said something else about beatniks- _sexually liberated_. Yoonji wasn't completely sure what that even meant, but Zhou Mi's proximity was making her wonder if she was.

_You can't just wonder if strangers are sexually liberated, Yoonji,_ she scolded herself, picking up her mug and swallowing down the last of her coffee.

"Maybe I could show you around campus sometime?" Zhou Mi offered, and Yoonji nodded even though she didn't really care about the college campus. "Do you want to get out of here? My car is in the lot. We could drive around, keep talking. Maybe park?"

Yoonji knew what parking meant. She might not have had any personal experience, but she wasn't stupid. How had Zhou Mi known she would want to? Maybe she was sending out sapphic signals after all.

"Okay," Yoonji agreed, trying to act like she had girls asking her to go park all the time. 

Zhou Mi's smile was bright as she stood up from the table and smoothed her pants.

"I have to tell my friend I'm leaving," Yoonji said, even though Namjoon had surely been watching the entire interaction. 

And how conspicuous was it that she was there with a friend, but they were sitting at separate tables? She might as well just announce that she had been waiting for a girl to come up to talk to her.

Zhou Mi waited by the door as Yoonji hastily returned her empty mug to the guy behind the counter before heading over to Namjoon's table.

"I'm going," she told him, feeling like she was wearing a giant sign that said _going to park with a girl_. "I'll come by later?"

"Do you want me to wait here?" he asked, always the dutiful friend. But the only thing that could make this more embarrassing was knowing he was sitting there, waiting for her while she went to make out with a woman she had just met.

She was about to go _make out_ with a woman she just met. Yoonji's body was sending her so many signals, she couldn't even discern any of them.

"No it's fine. She has a car," she explained, knowing her ears were red. "I'll have her drop me at your place."

"Okay," he replied, grinning in a way Yoonji knew meant he was pleased with himself. "Have fun!"

"Yeah yeah," she said, waving him off with warm cheeks and taking a breath as she made her way to the door where Zhou Mi was waiting. 

"Ready?" Zhou Mi asked, smile wide as her hand found the small of Yoonji's back and sent tingles over her skin.

Was she? She wanted to be, that was for sure. 

With an affirmative nod, Zhou Mi was leading her outside and cheerfully pointing things out on campus as they crossed the lot. It was dark out, so Yoonji could only see murky shadows of the buildings Zhou Mi was talking about, but science departments and cafeterias were the last things on her mind anyway. 

Once they were in the car, Zhou Mi talked a little about her classes and the challenges she'd faced that year as a freshman before she asked Yoonji some more about her piano playing. It was all pleasant conversation, and Zhou Mi was nice and clearly smart. In another situation, Yoonji could have really lost track of time talking with Zhou Mi. It was just...hard to focus when Yoonji knew where they were headed. 

Glancing out the window, Yoonji could see that they were getting to the outskirts of town- houses getting further apart and streetlights no longer lighting their way. In their town, there was a huge hill with a clearing shrouded by trees about halfway up that Taeha had talked about going to with Hoseok. Yoonji could only imagine that they were going somewhere similar. 

"Honestly, I really was going to read tonight," Zhou Mi chuckled, turning onto a side road that was even more narrow than the one they'd been on. "But I saw you, and thought it would be remiss of me to not at least talk to you."

That had Yoonji flushing, grateful for the darkness that hid her red cheeks.

"How did you know I…?" she started before trailing off. Lesbian still felt weird coming out of her mouth.

"I guess I've gotten pretty good at spotting girls who like girls," Zhou Mi giggled, shooting Yoonji a smile.

_Do not say sapphic signals out loud,_ Yoonji warned herself. 

Zhou Mi turned the car off the road into a little nook between some pine trees, headlights showing the flattened grass that indicated just how many people had come to park here in the past. 

With the engine turned off and Zhou Mi turned toward her, Yoonji felt a surge of adrenaline shoot down to the tips of her toes. 

"You're so pretty," Zhou Mi said softly, hand reaching out to lightly brush against Yoonji's jaw and sending tingles across her skin. 

Yoonji had never really thought of herself as pretty. As a kid, she'd been cute with her round face and gummy smile. Now...she was alright, she supposed- not really noteworthy in a good or bad way. 

But with Zhou Mi's soft gaze on her, she kind of believed it. 

Before their lips even met, Yoonji's skin was prickling with sensitivity as her heart pounded hard in her chest, so when Zhou Mi kissed her, Yoonji felt like there was electricity rolling through her. 

Those elegant fingers she had admired in the coffee shop and on the steering wheel slid around the back of her neck, pulling her in.

Zhou Mi was tall, so Yoonji tucked a foot underneath herself to get closer- one hand landing on Zhou Mi's shoulder and the other on her waist.

It was with a shiver that Yoonji parted her lips at the first touch of Zhou Mi's tongue. She'd seen Taeha and Hoseok kiss like this, but with her most intense kiss being with Taeha during truth or dare that one time, Yoonji had never experienced it for herself. 

Zhou Mi's tongue teased against hers, and Yoonji tried to follow her lead. Heat was flowing through her, pooling in her gut and making her head spin. She'd felt like this, aroused, before, but not to this extent. Not like she was about to shiver out of her own skin to get closer to Zhou Mi's touch. 

Getting her own hand on Zhou Mi's nape and feeling her silky hair between her fingers had Yoonji deepening the kiss with a little noise that she pretended hadn't come from her. Zhou Mi was pushing her jacket off her shoulders, but Yoonji didn't even notice the cool air on her bare arms with the fire licking at her insides.

The hand sliding up under her shirt had Yoonji startling, but she was quick to shift to give Zhou Mi easier access.

It was crazy that she hadn't even known Zhou Mi a day ago, and now she was gasping into her mouth as Zhou Mi's hand slipped under the bra she barely needed to brush against her tight nipple. A day ago, Yoonji had only kissed Taeha chastley (and Namjoon, though that barely counted), and now she was whimpering into the mouth of a near stranger as she clumsily worked to get her hands under Zhou Mi's shirt as well. Maybe this was moving obscenely quickly, but Yoonji had no intention of putting a stop to it.

Without even realizing it, her hips were gently rocking against the pressure of the edge of her shoe between her legs, but Yoonji couldn't help it. She was overwhelmed with the heat of Zhou Mi's skin beneath her hands and the way her skillful kisses were making her dizzy. 

Fingers were toying with her earlobe, her breast was being cradled by Zhou Mi's palm with her thumb brushing against her nipple, and each suck at her tongue seemed to echo in her abdomen with a yearning tug. It was so much, and it was so good. 

Before she even realized what was happening, her hips were jerking sharply as she gasped and trembled- engulfed in pleasure that started dull, turned sharp, and then went back to dull again as her body pulsed. That had been...an orgasm. She might not have had any prior experience, but she'd read about the reproductive system and sexual intercourse in a book from Namjoon's parents' study. And then there were the things that Taeha shared, both with and without invitation. 

She'd just had an orgasm- like a little bubble that had inflated and popped in a breath- but that wasn't how things were supposed to work. They'd just been _kissing_. Yoonji hadn't even known that was possible. And the way Zhou Mi had paused made Yoonji think it wasn't something she had been expecting either.

"Did you just…" Zhou Mi started, dark eyes surprised and lips puffy from kissing. 

Shame crashed down on Yoonji faster than the orgasm had, and she pulled her hands back from where they'd been nearly under Zhou Mi's bra. 

"It's fine!" Zhou Mi was quick to assure her, but Yoonji couldn't meet her eyes. "I just wasn't expecting it. But it's not a bad thing, honest!"

"I should probably be getting back," Yoonji said, drowning in her own embarrassment. She could feel how hot her cheeks were, ears nearly sizzling with how much they seemed like they were burning. 

Pulling her foot out from underneath herself, her body throbbed at the sudden lack of pressure. 

"Are you sure?" Zhou Mi asked, shifting in Yoonji's periphery. "We don't have to stop. It's-"

"My friend is expecting me," Yoonji told her, wincing at how cold she sounded. But it was as much a shield as her leather jacket that she hastily pulled back on. 

There was a beat where Yoonji was just staring at her fisted hands on her denim clad thighs, and willing herself out of there. 

"Okay," Zhou Mi finally said, turning the key in the ignition and starting the car.

At least the sound of the engine cut through the silence. 

Aside from giving curt directions to Namjoon's house, Yoonji was quiet during the seemingly endless drive back. Zhou Mi tried to make conversation a couple of times, but finally gave up. It had Yoonji feeling guilty, but the guilt was no match for the humiliation that was wrapped tight around her. 

"I'll be at the coffee shop again next weekend," Zhou Mi told her as she pulled up to Namjoon's house. "You should come by."

"Thanks for the ride," Yoonji replied, knowing she would not be going to that coffee shop ever again. 

She really did feel bad as she escaped the car with little fanfare. Zhou Mi had been really nice. And pretty. And a good kisser.

The embarrassment was just way too much for her to overcome. 

Sharply knocking on the door, Yoonji let out a breath of relief when he answered a moment later. She pushed past him to get inside, and made her way to his room on autopilot. 

"Well?" Namjoon prompted when he arrived in the doorway a moment later. 

"I don't want to talk about it," Yoonji informed him, sprawled on the bed and flipping absently through the novel that was on Namjoon's bedside table.

Namjoon paused, obviously not having expected that answer.

"I'm definitely a lesbian, if that's what you're asking," Yoonji offered, ears hot as she replayed her earlier embarrassment. No way was Namjoon going to hear about that.

"It wasn't," Namjoon chuckled, "but thanks for the update."

What was wrong with her? That was not supposed to happen from _kissing_. 

On the other hand, Yoonji couldn't stop thinking about how good it had been- how much she'd liked Zhou Mi's hands on her and how amazing it had felt when…

"Was it bad?" Namjoon asked when Yoonji didn't say anything else.

Bad? Definitely not.

"No," she replied, sitting up and putting the book back where she'd found it. 

She could tell Namjoon wanted to ask a million things, but was trying to restrain himself from overwhelming her as he leaned against the door frame.

"So it was good?" he surmised, and Yoonji nodded primly, cheeks feeling hot.

Eyes on her shoes, Yoonji couldn't help but wonder how easily she would be able to recreate what had happened in the car. Unlike how the books had made it sound, it wasn't some mysterious, difficult to obtain phenomenon. 

"But…?" Namjoon tried, clearly struggling to understand why Yoonji was being so weird about it if it had been good.

"I don't want to talk about it," Yoonji said again, doing her best to shove away the embarrassment that tried to well up again.

"You don't want to talk about it," Namjoon repeated, sounding a bit defeated. 

Yoonji nodded again, not planning to elaborate.

With a sigh, Namjoon sat down next to her, crumpling the blue quilt under him as he reached for the deck of cards he kept on his shelf.

"Rummy?" he suggested, though Yoonji could see the curiosity emanating from his eyes.

"Sure," she agreed, kicking her shoes off and pulling her legs up so she could face him.

Namjoon shuffled the cards, and Yoonji polled herself on how it felt to do something so mundane as playing Gin Rummy while knowing she had made out with a woman.

Surreal was definitely the best descriptor she could come up with.

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened?" Namjoon finally asked once the cards had been dealt, his usual patience showing uncharacteristic wear.

It had Yoonji's lips quirking even as she warded off another surge of embarrassment.

"Maybe when we're 50," she offered, snorting at the betrayed look on Namjoon's face. 

"50?" he parroted in disbelief.

" _Maybe_ ," Yoonji emphasized.

Namjoon groaned, and Yoonji cackled, feeling so much better about her night already. Though she knew she was bound to spontaneously cringe every once in a while thinking about the shock on Zhou Mi's face.

She needed to get her body under control, if that was possible. She also needed a little time to get over her embarrassment. Maybe she ought to wait until college to try meeting a girl again, even if it was difficult watching her peers date in a way she would never be able to.

As she proceeded to lose to Namjoon at cards as usual (the worst thing about having him as a best friend), Yoonji had resigned herself to an uneventful high school existence. 

But of course life never goes as expected.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm not sure when the fem!YoonJin will be out...it's really massive, and I've gotten myself all worked up about making it as close to perfect as I can. But follow me here or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/g_odalisque13) for updates on that. And not to be needy, but comments here would really bolster me as I tackle the main fic :) I also have a fem!TaeKook I hope to finish soon. And I want to write at least one fic for my TaeGi bingo card before the event ends. So keep an eye out and send productive thoughts! ♡


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